


when the first teeth go

by spacenarwhal



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Force-Sensitive Finn (Star Wars), Not Canon Compliant, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:55:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27753433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacenarwhal/pseuds/spacenarwhal
Summary: It ends, in some ways, just as it began: With Rey and Finn, and Kylo Ren.[Or: The post-TLJ/non-TROS compliant story I've been writing in my head for a year]
Relationships: Finn/Rey (Star Wars)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20
Collections: Finnrey Fanfic Connection





	when the first teeth go

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: This fic is not Kylo friendly. Just being up front.

It ends, in some ways, just as it began: With Rey and Finn, and Kylo Ren.

-

There’s no great battle. The snow on Agamar is trampled grey under the boots of rebels and troopers alike and Finn’s breath mists white in the air, his lungs throb in his chest, every single breath hurts, from the cold, from the fear, from the desperate hope burning inside his gut. 

_You can be more than this, more than what they want you to be, the choice is yours._

He remembers hiding what he was when he first ran, remembers shrinking from suspicious eyes on D’Qar. Finn remembers the weight of Rose’s admiration on the freighter, and the stabbing disappointment that followed, wishing he could make her understand how badly he needed to go after Rey, had to save Rey, how it wasn’t just greed that drove him but a pull, yanking behind his navel, a singular urge to go wherever it was Rey was. That pull is still there, tethering him to her somewhere up above, sitting in the cockpit the Falcon, listening with all the other pilots as Finn tries the impossible. 

The first helmet hits the snow with a nearly silent landing. The soldier’s bare face stands out, tightly-cropped black hair, brown skin, a sharp chin. Finn doesn’t recognize them, but he’ll never forget their face, and Finn tries to catch their eyes across the distance and communicate his gratitude. The second and the third land together, two more faces exposed to the cold, and then another helmet falls, and another, Finn’s eyes sweep across the crowd of faces being revealed, like stars appearing as the sun descends. 

There are orders barked, pop and prickle in the frozen air as they fall from the open comms, but more helmets fall as the orders go unanswered. 

“You did it, Finn!” Poe’s voice buzzes in his ear, disbelief and joy so thick that Finn’s own mouth twists into a smile, the cold hitting his teeth, his lips sting, blood beading to the surface where the dry skin tears itself apart, but it’s nothing compared to the feeling that rises his throat. “You did it! You got through to them.” Poe’s voice is brightly polished silver, burnished with pride. Most days, Finn doesn’t know what he did to deserve Poe’s admiration, how he’s kept all this time after so many mistakes he can’t take back.

There was no nobility in Finn the day he took Poe out of First Order custody, just blind-fear and the need to run, to put as much distance as he could between the slick-cold feeling in his gut that refused to let him pull the trigger and the spitting-rage he felt coming off Ren that day in the village. Everything that followed was born from that cowardice and Finn still doesn’t know what to make of that some days. All he did was run.

Today, he sees the courage it takes to throw down a blaster, the bravery in removing the amour you’ve been told all your life was crucial to your survival. Today, Finn’s heart floods with every single beating heart standing opposite him on that would-be battlefield, feels in his gut the beauty of every single human being reclaiming their own lives.

_Rebel scum_ , the memory of Captain Phasma’s voice says in his ear, but Finn’s worn the insult as a badge of honor for nearly a year now. Today he feels like sharing it with every single solider he sees. Finn breaks the line of rebels, his boot sinks into the snow as he takes a step and then another across the divide, walks until he reaches the first soldier and clasps their hand in his hand. 

-

He’s surrounded by bodies. Officers in their dress greys, eyes staring blindly up at nothing, troopers with savage holes gorged into their armor. General Hux’s limp body slumps across the threshold when they pry the doors open, his face contorted in silent agony, his throat bruised purple and blue by an invisible hand, his neck distorted at an odd angle. 

Kylo Ren is hunched over in a far corner of the room, his face ashened, sweat dripping down his temples, his dark eyes wide with anger and pain as they approach, blasters raised. His snarls at them, a trapped animal, and the room shakes, trembles all around them. Some in the party pause, others take a step back. Poe frowns, puts up a hand to stall their approach. Rey steps around him, hand outstretched. Kylo Ren’s eyes snap towards her, drop to hand, and his lip curls upward, ugly with rage. 

“It’s over.” Poe says, though he thinks Kylo Ren must know that already, must have known the fight was done the moment the troopers turned their blasters on him. “You’re under arrest by the orders of the New Galactic Republic.” Ren doesn’t seem to hear him at all, his eyes fixed solely on Rey. 

“I offered you everything.” He growls, Ren’s deep voice fills the room, crowds the insides of Poe’s head, makes the blood pound in his ears. Poe’s finger twitches on the trigger, but he knows better than to shoot. It might not even be necessary, Poe realizes, stares briefly at where Kylo Ren is holding his side, blood seeping around his pale fingers. It provides an ugly kind of satisfaction to know someone already got theirs. 

“I would have made you somebody.” 

Rey’s hand drops back towards her side, but she doesn’t stop moving. Her sweaty face is oddly placid, makes Poe’s insides swoop like when he’s performing a complicated maneuver in his X-wing. There’s so much he doesn’t understand about the Force, about what Finn and especially Rey can do with it. He remembers Kylo Ren ripping apart the insides of his mind for every single scrap of information he could find, remembers the pain and shame that came with it, and does his best not to hold it against Rey every single time she teaches Finn something new about the Force. He reminds himself that for every Kylo Ren there’s a General Organa, strong in the Force without twisting it to her will.

That’s who Rey looks like now, the emergency lights glimmering across her bare shoulder and upper arms as she moves, her spine reeled straight, her head held high. She moves with the same sort of confidence Poe remembers from the General from before he was taller than her, when he used to peek at her from under tables when she visited his parents. His heart clenches hard, grief as fresh as though it were only yesterday they lost her. Holding Kylo Ren at blaster’s end, Poe is glad, for the first time that Leia’s not here to see this, to see this man who was once her son twisted into someone unrecognizable. 

Rey dips forward, sinks to one knee in front of Ren. Poe trains his blaster on Ren, ready to shoot if he so much as twitches towards Rey. For all the discomfort Poe feels sometimes, for the flinching memory of pain, he’s known since Finn placed the tracking beacon in his hand that he’ll do everything in his power to keep Rey safe. This skinny-limbed wire of a girl, who loves as fiercely as she fights, who looks at Finn like he’s ignited every star in the sky whenever he masters a new skill, who talks for hours with BB-8 and knows in the insides of ships as well as any career-mechanic Poe’s ever met. She’s so young still, no matter how much power she carries, no matter how much responsibility the Resistance, Poe included, has placed on her narrow shoulders.

(It had been Rey, hadn’t it, who’d advocated they spare Ren’s life when Poe would have been just as happy blowing his ship out of sky.)

Rey’s voice is soft, almost inaudible in the room, but Poe strains his ears to hear her, sweat beading along his spine, the temperature in the room sweltering compared to the blizzard raging across Agamar. 

“You have nothing I want.” She says, and then she reaches forward, movement so quick Poe nearly misses it when Rey presses her palm to Ren’s sweat-slick forehead. 

Ren’s eyes go wide and his face flinches, contorts in fury and then falls slack. His eyes roll back, sickly white on his already pale face as he slumps forward, unconscious. 

-

“You alright?” Rose asks, lowering herself onto the floor next to Finn on the grounds of a makeshift storage room. It was crowded with broken equipment and empty crates when they found the bunker, but now its stacked full with supplies acquired from the First Order ships, everything that could be spared without leaving the crew short-handed. 

(Not all the former troopers left, some have stayed on, eager to be a part of something now that the only thing they’ve known all their lives is behind them, others waiting to make sure justice is enacted. Finn spends most of his time among them, talking to them, asking for their stories. They ask for his, full of questions and a life-long curiosity that can only now be answered. He can almost see it, like the leaves on the plants Rey collects aboard the Falcon, that unfurl and spread under the glow of the artificial sunlight she provides.)

Rose offers him a steaming cup of caf, through its almost lukewarm at the first sip. It doesn’t matter, Rose’s presence alone fostering a warmth in his bones. It’s so different from the warmth that comes off Poe--copper and bronze buffed to gleaming—or the warmth that hangs around Rey—desert sun and scalding sand, the soft of heat that could kill a wander, but nurtures secret wonders all its own. Rose blankets him, comfortable, reassuring, shields him from the prickling dark-pull of Kylo Ren somewhere in the bunker. Finn feels his shoulders relax a fraction, leans against her side.

It had been hard, finding this again after—after—but Rose smiles softly, a friend if not a lover any more. He loves her regardless, knows enough of the world outside the First Order to know all the different things that word can mean. 

“We won. Why wouldn’t I be.” He answers, hopes the honesty of the words will be enough. 

Rose knocks her shoulder against his. “Winning doesn’t fix everything.” She says, with that familiar wisdom Finn’s come to expect from Rose, Rose who has always been brilliant beyond her years. “It doesn’t bring back what we’ve lost.” Finn feels the old anger rise up in his belly, wishes he could go back and make things right, bring back her sister, give Rose back everything she deserves. There’s a deep longing inside of him, cloying and tempting all at once, and Finn’s mind rears backward from it. His thoughts, long since trained to shut out what it didn’t want to acknowledge, all those years spent under the First Order’s thumb, shift, tramples the feeling trying to worm its way deeper.

Power over his own life is all Finn needs. He knows how to live with wanting.

He takes a deep breath, leans more firmly into the security of Rose beside him, flesh and bone, impermanent and perfect for it.

“What are you going to do? After this?” Finn asks, looking down into the oily surface of his caf. His eyes stare back at him. It’s a nonsensical question, there is no after.

Rose shrugs, rests her head against Finn’s shoulder, “Thinking I might go back to Canto Bight. See what kind of trouble I can stir up.” Her hand is warm on his knee, squeezes gently, “You could come too. If you’re interested?”

Finn chuckles faintly, warm all over for the first time since Poe and Rey returned with Kylo Ren, unconscious and bound, bloody but still alive. It’s been a contentious decision since it was made, the base now divided about what to do with their prisoner. Kylo Ren’s mere presence feels more dangerous than any stormfront Finn’s encountered during his time on Agamar, makes his skin pimple, warning klaxons sounding in his head every hour that passes by with him nearby. Even unconscious, Ren bleeds out into the air around him, an oil slick atop previously clean water, polluting Finn’s mind. He wants to leave, wants to board whatever departing ship will carry him away but his life is here, the life he chose. Poe and Rose and Rey, all of them still here (and already Finn feels their time running out, knows whatever comes now will change all they share).

Finn isn’t running anymore.

“There’s something I have to do first.” he says, and Rose nods, fingers still reassuring on his knee. 

“I know—” Rose sighs, because she does, because she’s read her share of the ancient Jedi texts Rey is still pouring through, looking for a solution to a power that shouldn’t even be hers to solve. “Just, don’t forget, you have choices, okay. You get to do what’s right for you.”

Finn nods, appreciation ripening in his chest as he covers her hand with his own. “I know.” He says, and means it.

-

She finds the solution in one of the ancient texts she stole off Ahch-To, the yellowed page crowded with ink gone brown with age. She reads it three times over, her disbelieve mounting with every pass, her blood run cold in her veins. A binding—she reads again, and her vision blurs, her mouth gone dry.

“Rey.” Finn says, plucking her out of the cold in her head. She looks up, blinks to clear her eyes of the hazy film that’s layered over her vision. “What is it?” His concern cuts at her, soaks into her bones and seeks to sooth, and Rey can’t give into the urge to accept it.

She gathers herself, collects the frayed strands of her emotions, but Finn doesn’t need the Force to recognize them. He never has.

She can’t hide this, not from the Resistance, not from Finn. She holds the book towards him, her palms so slick with sweat when she withdraws her hand that she has to wipe them clean on her woolen trousers.

Finn’s brow furrows as he reads, his jaw clenches. “You think this will work?” He asks, but it’s the wrong question, Rey’s insides revolting at the thought of going through with the suggestion. A binding, she thinks, her stomach souring at the very notion, the description of the punishment alone makes her skin feel hot all over, like a fever without cure.

“You want to try—” Rey asks, incredulous. The days when she pitied Ben Solo might be behind her, her compassion severed in the burning ruins of Snoke’s throne room when he tried to kill her after saving her life.

This, however, goes beyond Ben, her reluctance rooted in contempt for the very idea of the practice. She feels the Force moving through her even now, feels it connecting her to Falcon, to Chewbacca, to the Porgs roosting in smuggler’s compartment, to the resistance base outside, every soldier, every droid, even to Ben Solo, still lying in his enforced slumber. She’s always known it, even before she knew it by name, before she learned how to breathe and pick every single thread apart without unraveling the whole of it, remembers it accompanying her those lonely nights on Jakku, cradling a ragdoll in her arms, looking up at the night sky. To be stripped of it, to be left utterly alone—

“Finn, this, it’s cruel.” She argues, her voice ragged, “It’s—” She wonders if Luke could feel it, the cruelty lying in wait inside the pages of these books he never read. She feels Finn, beautiful, star-bright Finn with his boundless heart and endless care, and shudders to think of him torn away.

“Better than what he’s done to a whole lot of people.” Finn argues, and Rey sees: Han Solo, walking towards his son on that narrow walkway, Han Solo falling, disappearing into nothing. Leia sitting, exhausted, grief hanging like an ancient shroud around her shoulders, admitting that her son was gone. “If we can’t kill him, than there’s no other choice—” Finn reasons, and whatever anger he carries inside him is nothing compared to the need to keep all the rest of them safe. Finn hates Kylo Ren, same as Poe does, but whatever anger lies in Rey doesn’t allow her to hate him. She still remembers the insides of his mind when he was young and believed himself betrayed.

“I don’t even know if I _can_ do it!” Rey snaps, desperate for it to be true, the book flying from her hand without conscious thought. It slams into the wall of the cockpit and falls to the floor in a flutter of pages, dust speckling the air. 

Because that’s what all of them are expecting, all of them down on the base waiting for Rey to provide a solution. Luke Skywalker is dead and Rey—Rey is supposed to be—they all expect her to be—

They don’t understand.

Luke understood. At the end. He understood that the Force was all of it, the light and the dark, life and death, all of it a part of the same. Ben knew it too, in his own distorted way. _It’s time to let the past die._

Rey is still only Rey, with all this power coursing through her, a student without teacher, no one left to help her tell right from wrong (she used to think she knew it, but all she’s learned since leaving Jakku is how much of the Force and galaxy itself is lost in grey).

Finn stands, stiff-shouldered and sharp-eyed, jaw squared so severely Rey loses sight of him for a second. It passes quickly, only a trick of the light. Finn picks up the book though he doesn’t open it, just wraps his hands around it, and holds it between his palms. His shoulders don’t fall out of their solid straight line, but his eyes soften when he looks at her. “You can, Rey. I know it.” There’s no expectation in his stare, only faith, the same faith he’s offered her for so long. 

Rey wants to wrap her arms around him, hates the uncertainty in her mind when he does just that, the book put off to the side so that he can hold her tightly. Some days she wishes he’d never told her his secret, wishes she could live in ignorance instead of doubt, the nagging dread that tells her it was always the Force that drew Finn to her, the Force that makes him stay. If she lets him, is she any different from Ben, who chased her across star systems and haunted her dreams.

“If I do this,” Rey whispers, her cold hands seeking warmth under Finn’s jacket, “how will I live with it?” How is she supposed to carry this for the rest of her life?

She doesn’t know if she says it aloud or if Finn senses it (he’s gotten so much better at reaching out through the Force, Rey’s taught him what little Luke taught her, and Leia, Leia too, before—).

“I’ll help you.” Finn says, cheek flushed warm against hers, “I’ll carry it with you.”

-

“You’re sure?” Poe asks though one look at either of their faces gives him all the answer he needs. Finn’s resolve is solid but Rey’s eyes waver, look through the observation window towards Kylo Ren lying motionless in his medical bed.

Rey looks wane, the skin around her eyes tight and creased all at once, these days of keeping Ren under and looking for a solution clearly taking their toll on her. Poe resists the urge to rub his forehead, the frustration he feels mounting between his shoulders growing restless in a way it only seems to when he stands in this room for too long.

After a long moment Rey finally nods, arms inert at her sides.

“Yes,” she says, and whatever Poe sees in her face is absent from her voice, the sound of it steady and firm. “We can do this.”

-

The insides of Ben’s mind are red and black, charred like the burned out husk of an ancient war machine, left to rust in the barren desert. It makes Rey’s insides ache, reminds her of the gaping mouth of the cavern on Ahch-To, the frigid darkness, the brackish air, the frozen surface of the mirrored stone where she saw only herself. 

It hurts, and for a second the fire flares, burns impossibly bright and then sputters to nothing, leaves nothing but ashened stone inside her, dead and dark. 

_You know the truth, say it…_

_They were nobody._ _I am nobody._

The darkness grows, intensifies, colder and more immense, and Rey sees herself, standing alone, alone--

“Rey.” A flicker in the dark. Soft, golden, glows warm at her back. “I’m here.”

Not alone, Rey remembers, lets the warmth wrap around her, hold her steady in the dark. She’s not alone.

The memory of the mirror melts away, leaving Rey standing on a barren stone field, rain failing quick and hard. It freezes her down to her bones. 

Kylo Ren stands in front of her, draped in shadows, red lightsaber sputtering wildly in his hand. “I would have taught you everything you’re scared to know.” he says harshly, charging her and Rey leaps to the side without looking, unarmed but not defenseless, evades him and never loses her footing. 

“Rey.” Finn appears at her side but the rain doesn’t touch him, his hand dry he takes hers. Suddenly the rain turns snow; the landscape forested, and then shifts again before Rey’s eyes have a chance to adjust to the glimmering white snow. She stands under the sun, the stone her boot heel sinks momentarily though it’s easy to find her center again, a lifetime of living on sand ingrained in her muscles. The sand hills of Jakku spread out in every direction, brown and gold, the sky a wash pale like a bleached bone.

Finn’s hand squeezes hers and Rey remembers him taking her hand at the market, the fierce urgency of his touch as he tried pulling her to safety. Her past annoyance at the gesture almost makes her laugh now.

Kylo Ren turns—he is Kylo Ren, his face hidden by his helmet—but when he comes towards them he’s Ben Solo once more, surprise clearly written across his face, exposed out under the brilliant sunlight.

“What are you doing?” He demands, still coming towards them, a man used to being a predator.

He’s within arms’ reach of them when the sand around them begins to sink in a perfect circle, sinks and sinks, an unless waterfall of falling sand with them alone standing at the center. 

“It’s over Ren.” Rey startles to hear Finn’s voice, hard as flint, a harsher command than any she’s heard him give in a firefight. But that’s what it is, a command, there’s no room for argument. Rey holds Ben’s gaze, the molten glare of it, refuses to let him cast it towards Finn. She won’t let him hurt Finn again, the burnt scent of leather and skin still seared in her memory. 

“You can’t keep me here forever.” Ben snaps, the words ragged, pried from between his teeth. “Even you aren’t strong enough for that.” His dark eyes dart towards Finn, quick as a blade drawn in the night, intent to draw first blood. “Or do you think he is?” The sand sinks faster, the sound of it hisses in her ears, “You can feel it, can’t you? We’re so much more than him. The Force bends to our will in ways he can’t even imagine.” 

Rey’s fingers curl into a fist, her blunt nails dig into her palm with enough force to sting. Anger, her own this time, squeezes around her heart. She isn’t scared of it either, not like she was on Ahch-To. She knows what it is now, a part of her, like her rough hands and her hungry mouth, a part of her petrified in the desert, but still hers. As much hers as the paths the Force trails through her fingers. 

“You’re not going to stay here, Ben.” She answers, her heart quickening, the memory of Jakku’s sun shining in her eyes. The sand shift, the circle widening, the sand falling faster, giving way under Ben’s feet until he’s brought down to his knees. He struggles, but there’s no moving, pinned by Rey and Finn’s will combined. 

Finn’s calloused fingers slip between hers and Rey feels the warmth of him, a shield at her back even as her heart beats painfully hard inside her chest. The Force gathers around them, thick as the humid air of D’Qar, the fog on Ahch-To, the sleet storms on Agamar. A flurry, a whirlwind, and them at the center, casting the only shadows that exist out on the sand dunes of Jakku. 

Ben’s face darkens, his anger mounts and grows wild, Rey can feel it, lashing out at them, but there’s nowhere for it to go. It rebounds off the Force, off the wall of Finn’s determination and Rey’s obligation.

Luke would have killed him once, when he was barely more than a child, and Han would have forgiven him on Starkiller Base, if he’d only come. Rey had once considered the possibility of taking his hand, Ben’s hand, and guiding him back to the Light.

“My son is gone.” Leia admitted to them while staring down a child’s glove clutched in her hand, sitting in the crammed cockpit of the Falcon after Rey retold them all about her battle with Snoke, with Ben. “He’s not coming back.”

Rey closes her eyes, the Force condensing, dense as the fiercest sandstorm. Rey can feel it, abrasive as it drags over her skin, grips Finn’s hand tighter as she imagines it in threads, woven tight, innumerable layers of it coming together, stronger than durasteel. 

“Ben,” She says, reaching out, the crown of Ben’s head sweat-damp under her fingers. “I’m sorry.” She means it, has meant it from the moment she realized this was the way, the only way to do what she needed to do. Nothing but this, this prison the only one truly capable of condemning Kylo Ren for his crimes. The Old Order knew its punishments well, their cruelty boundless in so many ways. Rey hates for them for it, for this. “This is is the first step,” says a voice on the wind, the net cast, coming down fast. 

-

This is what Finn sees, in those seconds between Rey touching Kylo Ren’s head and the air disappearing from that make believe land that looks like Jakku. 

He sees: A boy, dark haired and long-limbed, riding on the shoulders of a Wookie, he sees a girl with thin arms crying in the night, he sees Leia, younger, brighter, tears in her eyes as she waves goodbye, and Han Solo frowning from the viewport of a departing ship. He sees Rey, nails bloody as she picks scavenged pieces apart, and Luke Skywalker, face distorted in shadows and the sickly glare of his lightsaber, standing over him. Rey in the rain and Ren surrounded by bodies, sees himself through both their eyes. Ren sees him small, an ant to be crushed, weak, meaningless. Rey sees him--like no one has ever seen him before, Finn’s skin glimmering gold in the lights of Falcon. 

Then there is nothing, nothing, Ren and Rey and Jakku all disappearing, swallowed not by the sinking sand but by emptiness itself. 

-

Finn helps her sit up, and her head throbs, her throat dry. Ben Solo’s still body remains in its cot, motionless in more than one way. Rey looks away, shame twitching between her shoulder blades.

“Did you—could you?” Poe asks, eyes round with caution and he looks between them both, kneels at Rey’s other side, bookends her between them. Rey’s feels flayed open, the Force reaching out with greedy hands, ravenous now that it’s claimed Ben, and Poe’s worry bleeds into her, like Finn’s fear, and she wishes should pull away, but she can’t even hold her head up right.

Poe hand lands gentle on her back, his board palm blazing warm through the woolen fabric of her vest. “Rey?” 

Rey sucks in a hard breath. Ben Solo belonged to the Force, she doesn’t say, his mother’s son, his grandfather’s legacy. Kylo Ren tried to make the Force his, wanted to be its master without equal, bend it to his will alone. 

The Force is vengeful, just like Luke said, and it wraps around Ben now, a cage woven with innumerable threads, Rey doesn’t even know if she could ever unravel it if she tried. It constricts, shrinks down, shrinks tighter, suffocates the parts of Ben that once burned brightest until the wildfire of him has nearly disappeared entirely, only the smallest ember remains. Ben Solo belongs to the Force and it will not relinquish him. 

“He can’t hurt anyone now.” She says, tired, so tired, wants to close her eyes and sink into quiet nothingness. 

“He’s still Kylo Ren.” Poe counters, mouth a hard, uneasy line. Finn bristles against her, tries to edge Poe off, but worry rolls off Poe in agitated waves, it’ll crush Rey if she doesn’t say something to sooth it. 

Rey shakes her head, her vision swimming, black spots swarming at the corners of her eyes. “No, he’s not. He’s not Kylo Ren.” She swallows, the knot in her throat growing tighter, “He’s not even Ben Solo, not anymore.”

Finn’s voice echoes in her ears, “He’s nobody.” 

Her face crumbles, her shoulders slumping forward, worn thin and exhausted by grief and guilt alike. Rey covers her face with her rough, scavenger hands and cries, long jagged sobs ripping her throat apart as she mourns the man Ben Solo might have been and the woman she’s become.

Finn’s arms come around her, hold her close, and Poe embraces them both, his arms keeping them together and Rey is submerged, in warmth, in kindness, in love.

-

The last time Finn sees Kylo Ren he’s standing in shackles in front of a tribunal, standing trial for crimes against the Galactic Republic because there’s no one else left to punish. He seems shrunken, his once proud frame bent, his eyes empty. Finn never spoke to him after that day in the bunker, but he knows others did, knows Rey did, heard that this man knows what he did even if he doesn’t remember it.

(Finn wonders if he can feel it, the power buried just out of reach. He wonders if the Force whispers to him still, on the quietest nights, in his deepest dreams, wonders if he can feel it and not understand it, just like Finn once did.) 

Standing at the far back of a makeshift court room, Finn doesn’t know what he wants for him, this man who tortured Poe, who hunted Rey, who burned a scar across his spine and left him for dead.

“You can feel it, can’t you? We’re so much more than him. The Force bends to our will in ways he can’t even imagine.” Ren had said, and even though Rey’s mind never wavered, Finn still thinks about the truth of his words. He tries to imagine a different world, where Luke Skywalker managed to train Ben Solo, where Rey wasn’t left to wait on Jakku, wonders at the Jedi they could have been together. The stuff of legends, no doubt.

He wonders who might have been, in that different life, with a family to raise him, a name from birth, wonders if a saber would have fit in his hand then, if the First Order hadn’t stolen so much of him away. If any of that is even right.

Near the front of the room he can make out Rose’s dark hair, Rey standing beside her, Poe at attention, waiting to hear Kylo Ren’s sentence. Maybe there’s no punishment for the things that have been taken, nothing that can make those wrongs right and all Finn can hope to do is learn to live with it. Finn doesn’t linger, slips out of the room without a backwards glance.

-

“And what about you child?” Maz Kanata asks her, one of her leathery orange hands gently taking hold of Rey’s. The mess hall is buzzing tonight, crowded with bodies and laughter, new voices and old, music thrumming vibrantly in the air as Connix and Pava dance to celebrate their official union. 

Rey’s watched from the sideline, happy to see so much joy after so much sorrow, tracks the sunspot of Finn in the room, catches glimpses of him in the crowd: being cajoled into dancing by Poe, playing cards with Rose with a group of pilots, talking with some of the newest recruits. They all have names, Finn takes so much pleasure in using them as frequently as possible when talking to them or about them to other people. Rey smiles, breathes in and for a moment thinks about seeing the world with different eyes, thinks about the dozens of threads of light, of sound, of energy, holding all of them together, but the truth is she’s been hesitant since the day she bound Ben Solo. “Where does your road take you next?” 

“Honestly?” She remembers sitting alone in the sand, back on Jakku, remembers watching the horizon, waiting, always waiting, knowing there was so much more in the galaxy for her to discover and yet, stuck in place. “I don’t know.” 

She knows she can’t stay on Agamar, but none of them can. The need to hide is over. The Resistance can move out into the light of day now. Rey thinks of Poe, knows he’ll dedicate his life to seeing that Leia’s vision is made real, a galaxy made free and secure from the core to farthest reaches of the outer rim. She thinks of Rose, the shining heart of her, her plans to offer aid where its needed, her brigade of medics and engineers preparing to go soon. Connix will go with her, and Pava too most likely. 

Then there’s Finn, who Rey doesn’t need to use for Force to see the thread that binds them, content to simply feel the strength of it.

They’d made a promise to one another after Crait and they’ve done their best to keep it, never leaving one another behind except by absolute necessity. Telling the truth, no matter how frightening the possible outcome. (“I wondered about you every day.” Rey told him, Crait behind them and the unknown ahead, “I wanted—I hoped we would meet again. I’m glad I found you.” and she didn’t know, not then, that the feeling could grow into something else, the way an unknown seed blossoms into a flower you didn’t know to look for.)

Rey doesn’t know where Finn will go, can see him remaining with Poe, or else, joining Rose. He’s always been good at taking care of others. Or maybe he’ll go somewhere else, somewhere new, maybe he’ll go where the other former troopers went when they left Agamar, join them on their journey to discover where they came from before the First Order stole them away. 

“Will you go back to Takodana?” Rey asks Maz, staring into her small dark eyes. Maz nods, “Yes, it will be good to be back home.”

“I can take you, on the Falcon. I’d like to see it again.” Maz smiles, her ancient face creased with kindness. “Only if the Wookie comes too.” she teases, and Rey laughs, the uncomfortable lump at the pit of her stomach easing. Maz looks out at the crowd, drops one set of her magnifying lenses over her eyes. “I think you’re needed elsewhere now.”

Rey doesn’t need to look, feels a tug at her corner of her perception, and knows even before she meets his eyes that Finn looking for her. He waves at her when he catches her eye, motioning enthusiastically for her to join the mass of messily moving limbs. Behind him Poe is spinning Rose, both of them pink faced and laughing, Finn momentarily distracted when Poe performs the same move with him. Rey laughs, looks at Maz to excuse herself but Maz just waves her off with her delicate hand.

Rose cheers when Rey joins them, and though she tries to evade him, Poe captures her in his arms, dipping her low in a swoop, Finn’s laughter booming all around them.

Rey does not know what lies ahead but tonight she has this, and she is happy.

-

“You could still be a general.” Poe says causally, loading another crate with supplies. The move off Agamar has started already, but it’s good to keep busy, not just to ward off the cold but to keep his mind for eating itself with questions about what the future brings. “I mean—you are still a general. If want you could—you know, keep doing what you’ve been doing.”

Finn chuckles, working on emptying his own area of the supply room, “The thought did cross my mind.”

Poe clears his throat, “Of course, if you wanted to, y’know, do something else, that would be okay too.”

Finn pauses, glances over his shoulder. Poe keeps his eyes fixes on the pile of bandages he’s depositing in the box. He neatens one of the stacks that’s fallen over, takes extra care with the next bunch he moves over. Poe can still feel him staring.

“You kicking me out?” Finn asks, voice high with incredulity, and Poe looks up, face twitching between disbelieving laughter and offense. “What? No! What are you—I’m just saying, if you wanted to, you could do literally anything else you wanted to do.”

“What if I want to stay here? With you guys?” Finn asks sharply, holding two rationed meal-packs in hands.

Poe makes sure to keep his shoulders loose, his face easy, holds Finn’s stare, “If that’s what you want, I’m happy to have you. There’s not many people I trust as much as you, pal.” Finn’s shoulders relax and Poe wants to beat his head against the shelf. Jess was right when she said he needed an adult to oversee this conversation. “But you should know that that doesn’t change even if you decided to do something else. You’ve still got me and everyone else, even if you never fight another fight again, you’ve got us.”

Finn’s face goes oddly still, his eyes full of confusion. Poe remembers all over again that Finn’s life essentially began the day he pulled Poe out of a holding cell, that every moment of it has been this, fighting for every moment of survival.

Poe had a life before the Resistance. He got a Pa waiting for him still, back on Yavin IV, had a Ma who taught him the inside of an X-Wing better than any instructor at the academy could hope to, learned how to climb a tree and when he skinned his knee someone was there to make it better.

Finn never had that and as much as Poe wants him here, same as he’s been these last few years, he also wants him to have so much more, wants him to see the whole galaxy as more than a series of battlegrounds. Poe’s been able to give him a taste of that, but there’s more than enough left. “Poe—”

Poe holds up his hand, “You don’t have to make a decision. Just—think about it, alright?”

-

Takodana is still shining green and glistening blue, and Rey’s heart still catches in her throat even after all this time, all the places she’s seen. Takodana still remains the realization of a dream Rey had never thought she’d have.

_I never knew there was so much green in the entire galaxy._

Maz has already started rebuilding, though it isn’t on the same scale as before, “Not yet,” Maz assures her, but the inside is almost as Rey remembers, dark and crowded, full of music and travelers. 

Maz invites Rey to a eat in thanks, fills her cup with sweet ale and her plate with strange fruits, dried meats and bread. Rey still eats with her fingers, gorges herself happily after so many months without nothing but ration bars and veg-meat to sustain her. Chewbacca carries the conversation around her, teases Maz and challenges other patrons to games of sabacc. Rey laughs with her mouth full, looks to her side and it’s only when her eyes land on the empty seat that she realizes who she’s looking for. 

“Can I ask you a favor?” Rey asks when she can’t delay leaving a moment longer, nervous though she thinks she might know Maz Kanta’s answer. 

The trunk is heavy but Rey is happy to carry it with her hands. She can life rocks easily enough now, but there’s still satisfaction to be found in doing this the way she always has, the same spark of contentment she feels when she works on an engine or does maintenance on BB-8. She carries the box down into the stone cellar under Maz Kanata’s rooms, “they survived the blitz” Maz tells her proudly while she guides Rey down. Maz doesn’t ask what is inside the box, but Rey shows her anyhow, the spines of the texts warped from age and rough weather. 

The remains of Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber is wrapped in oil cloth at the bottom, still broken. Even Rey couldn’t fix it, no matter how hard she tried. Still, she can’t bring herself to throw it away. Maybe someday she’ll figure that out too.

“Will you hold on to these for me. For a while—just until—until—I—” Rey doesn’t know what sign she’ll look for, how long it might take. After all this time, Rey is still waiting. It’s almost enough to make her laugh.

“Take however long you need, dear.” Maz says, “It will all be here when you are ready.”

-

They are sitting aboard the Falcon again, though today Rey is working on the hyperdrive flux, buried in the innards of the Falcon before the problem blows up into something serious midflight. Finn sits besides the toolbox, handing her whatever she needs when she asks for it. Poe and Rey have both taught him a fair bit about engines, enough to be useful in a pinch, but Finn still prefers to sit by and watch them at their work, makes himself useful by learning the names to the countless spanners they go through.

“Poe asked me to leave.” Finn says mildly, between taking a sonic wrench from her grasp and passing her the a hydrospanner. There’s a clang from beneath and then Rey’s head appears, grease smeared on her forehead, her dark hair starting to come loose from its tie. She’s been wearing it different since she came back from Takodana, braided and coiled tight at the back of her head. Finn wants to tell her it suits her, but he can’t get the words right, doesn’t know how to say it without feeling like his face will catch fire.

“He what?” Rey asks sharply, a fight already evident in her eyes. Finn’s facilitated enough impassioned conversations between Rey and Poe to last him a lifetime, quickly backtracks to prevent another. “I mean, he didn’t say it like that—more like, he told me I could leave, if I wanted to. If I—felt like that was what I wanted.” He feels stupid as soon as the words come out. He’s been thinking about it, just like Poe asked him to, but no matter how much he does he can’t figure out what he’s supposed to do.

Rose will leave soon, but there’s an unspoken understanding that she’ll return, for more supplies, more medics, her mission so closely connected to that of the remaining Resistance body that it would be foolish to wholly divide them. And Poe, he’ll stay too, he wears Leia’s mantle now, easier these days than he did at first, when he second guessed his every order and direction, shaken by the fallout of D’Qar.

Finn doesn’t know what Rey means to do, if she’ll continue her learning here or go back to Ahch-To and whatever is left of Luke Skywalker there, if she’ll tap into R2-D2’s memory banks and see where else Luke went in his quest to reestablish the Jedi. She is the last of them now, until she finds others like her, as close to a master as remains in the galaxy and Finn doesn’t plan to steal her time or focus on a pupil like him.

Rey lifts herself onto the platform beside him, legs still hanging over the side. She studies Finn with the same sort of curiosity he remembers from their first days together, when she didn’t know what to make of him at all. “And do you want to?” She asks, words soft with inquisitiveness. The question prods at Finn’s own indecision, makes him less sure of what he wants than he was before.

What he wants doesn’t matter, not when he already has all he needs and more. He has his freedom and family all his own, by choice if not by blood. He even has the Force, a new way of experiencing the world around him that he never would have understood if he’d remained with the First Order. He has more than he’d ever imagined he’d have.

He got what he wanted most, all of them alive in the wake of their battles, all of them still here, still together, even if it can’t last forever.

He wants—he looks at Rey, her lovely face, her bright eyes, feels the pull of her inside him, a hand around his heart. He wants more than he can ask for.

“I’m going to Jedha.” Rey says, syllables clicking together in a rush of words. Finn blinks, taken aback by the sudden turn in their conversation.

“Jedha? There’s nothing there, is there?” Finn scans his memory, remembers reading something a mining accident decades ago.

Rey flushes, color growing in her cheeks, “Maz Katana has a contact, they told her about a cave—I want to go. See it for myself.” Rey bites her lip, nervousness appearing at the corners of her mouth. “I’d like to find a kyber crystal for myself.” She adds, “And I’d like if you would come with me.”

It makes everything in Finn go still, every single molecule brought it a standstill as he looks at her, her earnest face, her nervous eyes, feels a surge of something so like longing flood through him he needs to take a deep breath. 

“Rey,” Finn says softly, feeling something in him shrink back. “I’m not like you. I’m not a Jedi.” Ren was right about that much. Finn’s always been a foot soldier, not a Jedi Knight.

Rey’s brow creases, her nervous wiped away by a flood of disbelief. “And I am?” She laughs, but there’s something brittle to it, uneasy, her hand reaching for his, grabbing at his wrist with grease smudged fingers. “Finn, I’m not asking you because I want you to be a Jedi—I don’t—I just want you to be Finn.”

He looks at her, her pink face, the freckles that have reappeared across her nose from the sunshine on Takodana. Her eyebrows hunch downward, her eyes shrinking as her voice grows louder. “Finn, I’m not a Jedi. Not yet, maybe not ever. And I don’t—I’m not sure that I want to be. Not if it means doing things like—” Ben Solo goes unspoken between them but Finn feels the impression of him, the burden of their actions still so heavy in Rey’s mind, “The truth is I don’t know what I want to be. But I know I’d like to learn.”

Rey takes a deep breath, “There’s so much to learn still, Finn. And I’m done waiting for someone else to teach me. I’m going to take the Falcon and I’m going to go learn everything I can, make up my mind about what it is I’ll do.”

_Don’t go_ Finn thinks, stomach aching with longing, but Rey looks at him, understanding growing in her eyes even as a smile unfurls across her face. Rey slides her hand down his wrist, picks his fist up, drapes his fingers over hers. She startles him, bends forward and presses a single dry-lipped kiss against his knuckles, so brief Finn half-expects he’ll wake from whatever dream he’s fallen into. “Come with me.” Rey whispers, stare hopeful and young, just as Finn said to her once, long ago, worlds away.

-

The Holy City is nothing but ruins, shattered stone and sand, but the moon known as Jedha still remains, turning its slow orbit of NaJedha. Even from the cockpit of the Falcon Rey can feel the history seeped into the stones there, it radiates from every shadow cast by the mountains still standing on the southern hemisphere of the moon.

Finn pulls his jacket closer as they disembark, Chewbacca growls in complaint about the sand. “It’s beautiful.” Rey says, studying the red mountains in the distance, the ancient faces carved into the cliff sides of abandoned temples.

“This is the first step.” The cold wind calls, and Rey hangs her staff over her shoulder, reaches for Finn’s hand to guide their way forward. Finn is less confident in their path than Rey, but his steps grow surer the closer they get to the cave, Chewbacca watching both their backs though Rey knows in her gut that no harm will come to them here.

Jedha watches over them.

Finn lights a fusion lantern at the mouth of the cave, while Rey takes her staff in hand to check the ground is sturdy as they venture further in.

“Rey…” Finn breathes, and Rey nods, her squeezes at his hand. “I know.” She agrees, because she feels it to, the way the air sings, dozens of voices all singing the same song in different keys.

They walk for what feels like hours, or maybe days, though there’s no way that can be right, Chewie still following after them, inquisitive whines at the back of his throat as the cave opens up into a larger cavern. When Finn shines the lantern light, the whole cave seems to ignite, the walls glimmering, flashes of blue and pale green, rich purples and specks of ruby. The singing echoes here, reverberates in Rey’s bones.

She closes her eyes, cover come, and an images arises from the dark. Finn, shining in starlight, but it isn’t, it’s the glow of his lightsaber, illuminating the dark like a diamond reflecting light. Rey stands beside him, and she glows too, golden as the sun, a double bladed hilt her hand, each blade the color of Spring and freshly baked bread. They look older, Finn’s hair longer, Rey’s eyes sharper, their free hands still joined.

She opens her eyes to the glimmering cave, to Finn at her side, to Chewbacca still watching over them.

She doesn’t think about it, doesn’t stop to think about it, turns towards Finn and gathers him close. Finn’s arms go around her without hesitation—he’s never hesitated, never held back—and Rey takes his face in her hands. His lips are soft against hers, careful, and she feels such incredible joy, blinding and swift flooding through every part of her. They’ve been so careful around one another since leaving Agamar, but here now, the vision of them still vivid in her head, Rey is done being careful.

This is Finn, still Finn, wonderful Finn who came back for her when she was only ever Rey. She pulls back, rests her forehead against his and knows he feels it as strongly as she does. “Rey,” Finn starts, then stops, looks at the cavern. Rey notices it then.

The singing has fallen nearly silent, the chorus of voices muted except for two.

“You hear that?” Finn asks, excitement coloring his voice. Rey nods, her heart quickening, her stomach turning somersaults, clutches at Finn’s arms tightly before pulling away. Behind them Chewbacca growls, “Sorry Chewie.” Finn says, not sounding sorry at all.

“C’mon then.” Rey says, rolling her eyes, and they step forward together.


End file.
